Humans have so much potential but sometimes it gets ruined with the little devices in our pocket. Nickolas Carr is a great writer and he wrote this paper called “ is google making us stupid”. In this paper it really brought my attention to how much technology is changing us for mostly the bad and how we aren’t seeing it fast enough or if we are seeing it we are putting a blind eye towards it. Also sherry turkle who is a phenomenally writer wrote another paper about how our phones and technology are shaping us to need things fast and how we don’t have much patience anymore. Technology is making us weaker and not as creative.
In Nicholas Carr’s paper he talked alot about how as a society we have lost patience because of google and how fast technology is. He explained “Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages”. (pg1 paragraph 2). I agree with this so much because google is making us so stupid and less patient. Because when we type in something to google it just takes seconds to come up with an answer so when we go and read and try and find answers that way our brains hate how long it takes so we just stop reading. Reading is hard as it is so when we find an easier way to find answers and then we go back to reading and finding answers that way it’s very difficult for our brain. I really liked our Nicholas Carr talked about how hard reading is. “ We have to teach our minds how to translate the symbolic characters we see into the language we understand”.( pg3 Paragraph 4). I have never thought about it this way but it’s so true. Letters are just symbols and that’s why it’s so hard for us to read and how it’s so much easier for us to have google do it for us. As Nickolas Stated in his paper “Google is making us stupid” I very much agree with this because not only are we losing patience but we are losing our writing skills due to always typing on our phones or our computers. When we write on paper no one is offering different words to choose from and if you don’t choose it your words will stay underlined in red so it just makes you switch the word.
Distraction, like many other things, has evolved over the years. It is only natural that while humans evolve, modes of distraction and our responses to them evolve simultaneously. Today, the main mode of distraction is technology, and most people are just starting to form their own opinions about it. Since it is a highly debatable topic, it is only natural that people can have perspectives from the opposite ends of the spectrum. Nicholas Carr, a journalist who mostly writes about the effects of technology, laments that it is stealing his ability to think deeply in his article, Is Google Making Us Stupid? On the opposite end of the spectrum, Sam Anderson, a writer for the New York Times Magazine, talks about how he has noticed technology affecting people, and then “defends” it in his article, In Defense of Distraction. While Carr feels that technology is reducing our human complexity, Anderson argues that it actually increases it, because it forces our brains to change. While I understand where Carr is coming from, I believe that Anderson’s view is more compelling. Since evolution is a natural part of life, I don’t believe that technology will always have the effects that Carr describes, though I do realize that it is an issue now.
The brain is the most complex part of the human body, and consequently isn’t 100% understood now. What we do know is that it is very elastic and therefore has the ability to adapt to many situations. I believe technology is therefore adaptable, even within one’s lifetime. Anderson shares the same view. While he discusses the fact that there is currently an attention crisis, he doesn’t necessarily see this as a bad thing in the long run, arguing that, “More than any other organ, the brain is designed to change based on experience, a feature called neuroplasticity. London taxi drivers, for instance, have enlarged hippocampi…a neural reward for paying attention to the city’s streets. As we become more skilled in the 21st century task Mayer calls “flitting,” the wiring of the brain will inevitably change to deal more efficiently with more information.” Here, Anderson describes neuroplasticity, which is the brain’s ability to learn and adapt during one’s lifetime. He believes this ability can also be applied to the use of technology, and therefore, the attention crisis will not always be such a crisis. Carr thinks the opposite will happen. He believes that technology will eventually stretch our minds way too thin, sacrificing the complexity of human minds. Specifically, he argues “As we are drained of our “inner repertory of dense cultural inheritance,” Foreman concluded, we risk turning into “pancake people”-spread wide and thin as we connect with that vast network of information accessed by the mere touch of a button.” Carr believes the evolution of technology will only serve to hinder the human race. I believe both opinions, in their opposing views, have their merits. I agree with Carr in that right now it may seem like technology is just making people more flat, but I believe this will change with time. As we learn to coevolve with technology the longer it is around, I believe we will become used to it, and once again be able to function as we did before. The human mind is so amazing in its ability to adapt to new situations. How could technology, which is just a new thing to evolve with, not apply in this case? And so, my opinions line up more closely to Anderson’s.
Is technology really affecting us all that deeply? Do we have a problem that we can’t see? While I believe something should change, writers Nicholas Carr and Sherry Turkle both wrote about their thoughts on technology. Turkle, an author of 10 books and a professor at MIT, believes that technology is destroying our abilities to make connections. While Carr begs the question “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”, believing that our brains are changing and being remapped. These two believe that technology is a distraction, which I agree with. Turkle says it best that technology isn’t allowing “Students… to be making friendships as before. They make acquaintances, but their connections seem superficial.” (Sherry Turkle 345) We are all so caught up in our phones we aren’t able to connect to each other or have the ability to stay focused on the conversation in real life without needing to look at our phones. Carr says that his “concentration often starts to drift” he gets fidgety and begins “looking for something else to do.” (Nicholas Carr 1) I find myself often peeking at my phone in the middle of conversations, making sure I don’t miss a text message. I get fidgety and bored quickly, looking around for something else that seems more interesting, which leads me to my phone; scrolling endlessly, playing a game or just texting a friend. Even while writing only 500 words, I’ve checked my phone multiple times. Is giving in to boredom and looking at my phone every few sentences healthy? While Carr talks to his friends they believe “The more they use the Web, the more they have to fight to stay focused on long pieces of writing.” (2), so am I making myself worse off by giving into boredom? In Turkle’s piece she explains an experiment that was done where people were asked to sit quietly without a phone or book for fifteen minutes. The ones conducting the experiment asked if they would shock themselves if they became bored. Although at the beginning they said they wouldn’t, they couldn’t stand the boredom, so they decided to shock themselves within only six minutes of being alone. Turkle says we are “Afraid of being alone” (348) but has technology actually just ruined our abilities to keep ourselves busy alone? I think they we are so used to the constant stimulation of our phones; we have unlearned patience. If you are bored, you whip out your phone and find something to do that interests you until it’s time to do something else.
Thoughtful Words
Maybe not all but most of us start our days off by checking our phones: what time is it? Who texted? What’s happening on social media? Etc.… then throughout the day we have our phones on us and check/use them frequently. Along with having our phones most of us probably have some other sort of device around us whether it be a computer, tv, etc. It’s around us all the time now. Technology is changing everything for us, the way we think, write, conversate, connect, and act. Sherry Turkle, with a doctorate in sociology and personality psychology, wrote the book “In Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age”. The intro to her book is called “The Empathy Diaries” where she writes about why she believes technology is an oncoming issue to how we empathize and connect, along with the effects on our reading, writing and thinking. Turkle focuses more on the impacts of our connections and ability to empathize. In Nicholas Carr’s article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” He focuses on the loss of our attention span and human potential.
The way we conversate and connect with people is different now that we have technology. Every day I use my phone, whether it’s to text my friends, family, watch social media or movies. I never really saw or even thought about the effects it could have on my ability to connect/ converse with people, until I read “The empathy diaries” and have come to be more aware. “We have embarked upon a voyage of forgetting. It has several. At a first, we speak through machines and forget how essential face-to-face conversation is to our relationships, our creativity and our capacity for empathy” (Turkle 352 para 2). Face-to-face conversations are what make our connections stronger. Being face-to-face allows you to see/learn body language, social cues and how to empathize with someone. It teaches lots of personal development skills and I have begun to realize that conversations are usually superficial unless effort is put into them. No one puts effort anymore and would rather the comfort of being in a virtual world. But this is a problem, without conversations or connections an important characteristic would be missing from us, which is empathy.
The media is designed in a way that shortens our attention span and changes the way we read and think. It supplies all different kinds of information at once, usually in short spurts. This is making it so that when it comes to reading a book or “long” essay we find it hard to concentrate the whole time, as our attention span is being altered by this new type of reading. I myself am in this position and have noticed my attention span is shorter than it should be. The internet knows what it’s doing “as people’s minds become attuned to the crazy quilt of Internet media, traditional media has adapted to the audience’s new expectations” (Carr 5.2). We seek quick and easy access to information, where we don’t really have to think. The internet has learned what we expect and gives it to us with an overload of info. When I go on Instagram reels or Tik Tok the videos are usually short and if they are long or I’m not interested I can just swipe easily and from it I get all different sorts of information thrown at me in such a short time span. I sometimes fall in the trap of doom scrolling but I know this is a problem, and I see the effects myself. It’s all about balance and self-control and that’s something we probably all need to work on
Technology has become a part of our everyday lives. Many believe it’s impacting our human behavior. Nicholas Carr touches on this topic in his essay, “Is Google Making Us Stupid.” He mentions how technology is taking away our ability to think. Similarly, Sherry Turkle, a doctorate holder in sociology and psychology from Harvard, also writes an essay about technology called, “The Empathy Diaries.” She explains how technology affects conversation and our capacity for empathy. Both authors agree that technology is affecting us negatively, but Carr focuses more on how it affects our intelligence and concentration, while Turkle focuses more on how it affects our conversation.
Turkle and Carr both agree that we use technology to avoid something. Carr believes the internet has chipped away at his capacity for concentration and as a result, he can no longer focus on long pieces of writing. To improve this argument, he refers to a study of online research habits, organized by scholars at the University College London. The scholars reported that, “It is clear that users are not reading online in the traditional sense; indeed there are signs that new forms of “reading” are emerging as users “power browse” horizontally through titles, content pages and abstracts going for quick wins. It almost seems that they go online to avoid reading in the traditional sense”(Carr 3). Instead of thoughtfully reading through articles, people are just skimming through and browsing to avoid reading the whole thing. Similarly, Turkle thinks we use technology to avoid having face-to-face conversation. She explains that conversation is important for our early development, “But these days we find ways around conversation. We hide from each other even as were constantly connected to each other”(Turkle 344). Technology makes it easy to avoid conversation. There’s so many other ways to communicate now so we don’t have to speak face-to-face. Carr also believes technology helps to avoid, but he believes it helps to avoid reading a text, rather than to avoid conversation. I think they both make very good points and I agree that we use technology to avoid certain things. I can relate to Turkle’s point because sometimes I will text a friend who lives two doors down when I could’ve just knocked on their door. But texting is right at my fingertips and it’s much more convenient. It’s less stressful than having to go ask something in person. I also relate to Carr’s point because I rarely read full articles anymore. I skim over the headings and read some of it, but sometimes I skip over whole paragraphs. I avoid conversing and reading full articles because technology allows me to avoid it.
In an increasingly interconnected world, technology has become the backbone of human society, it’s been used to better lives, build communication, promote learning, and enhance access to information. Sherry Turkle, a renowned sociologist and psychologist, has dedicated her career to exploring the intricate relationship between technology and human connection. In her anthology, “The Empathy Diaries,” Turkle dives into the paradox that in our digital age while technology offers unprecedented avenues for connection, it can also lead to isolation and superficiality. By examining the impact of digital communication on our emotional lives, Turkle argues that fostering genuine empathy requires a conscious balance between online interactions and face-to-face interaction. Through her analysis, she challenges us to reflect on how we engage with technology and why the importance of nurturing our ability for empathy is an incredible necessity in an increasingly mediated world. Nicholas Carr, a prominent writer and thinker on technology and culture, poses a critical question in his thought-provoking essay, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” He examines the cognitive effects of our reliance on the internet and digital devices, arguing that the ease of accessing information may reshape our brains in ways that tend to breed chaos. Carr suggests that while technology provides us with an excessively keen amount of knowledge, however, it can also strongly diminish our ability to concentrate, think critically, and engage deeply with complex conversions by scrutinizing our relationship with technology. Carr invites readers to consider the habits of our digital ways and the potential consequences for our cognitive abilities and intellectual growth in the modern age; however, this essay argues that technology is far from making us “stupid,” as Carr may suggest, in fact, it teaches us to adapt to the challenges that our generation may have. Which will speed up intellectual growth and social connection, enabling us to access vast information, engage with diverse perspectives, and cultivate meaningful relationships in previously unimaginable ways.
To fully appreciate the benefits of technology, it is essential to recognize how it has transformed the way we access information and learn, making knowledge more accessible than ever before. Turkle brings up the point that “technology can foster connections, providing a platform for voices that might otherwise go unheard” (Turkle ). Saying this I can conclude that I agree there have been so many times in my life where technology has been the only outlet not just to unheard voices but unwanted voices, growing up in a toxic environment my words never hit the ears of adults until after the age of “maturity” which was sixteen, and even still it was shallow, and hollow in their ability to listen.
Sherry Turkle, a sociologist and author of “The Empathy Diaries,” along with Nicholas Carr, who wrote the essay “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” both voice concerns regarding the impact of technology on communication and learning. They discuss their views in two primary ways: they argue that todays technological media hurts essential human capabilities. Carr believes that the constant rush of the internet prevents us from taking the time to reflect or fully understand anything, even posing the provocative question, “Maybe all this is making us less intelligent?” On the other hand, Turkle says that “Technology challenges us to assert our human values. In a world where our devices encourage distant connections, we must exert greater effort to cultivate empathy and maintain emotional ties.” (Turkle) This leads to shallower relationships, making it increasingly difficult to empathize with and comprehend others’ emotions.
Clearly, the internet has profoundly influenced our cognitive processes and how we think. This influence is particularly evident in our ability to concentrate and engage in “deep” thinking, which for many has shifted towards a more superficial and distracted approach, such as navigating a website. The views offered by Carr and Turkle are not new; numerous individuals have raised similar concerns regarding these shifts. It is important to recognize that advances in technology are gradually changing essential elements necessary to uphold core values.
Both Carr and Turkle acknowledge a common observation about technology’s tendency to promote superficial interactions, especially amongst the internet and digital communication. Carr discusses how technology, particularly the internet, influences cognitive functioning, making sustained attention and critical thinking more challenging. He notes, “My mind isn’t going—so far as I can tell—but it’s changing. I’m not thinking the way I used to think. I can feel it most strongly when I’m reading.”(Carr) Meanwhile, Turkle highlights, “We have sacrificed conversation for mere connection. We have traded real-time interaction for the illusion of companionship, which, in turn, weakens our capacity for empathy,” (Turkle) emphasizing that technological connections lack the depth of face-to-face interactions, which are vital for fostering genuine empathy and understanding among individuals.
As humans have evolved and developed more technologies and advancements in many stages of life, along with it distractions have evolved simultaneously. There have always been distractions, it is only natural that as times have changed. Humans have adapted to these new distractions in many aspects. Our lives are heavily dominated by the use of technology and consequently these new technologies provide a constant distraction from both reality and from the task we’re trying to focus on. Nicholas Carr, a journalist who mostly writes about the effects of technology, outlines how these distractions are stealing his ability to think deeply in his article, Is Google Making Us Stupid? On the opposite end of the spectrum, Sam Anderson, a writer for the New York Times Magazine, talks about how he has noticed technology affecting people, and then “defends” it in his article, In Defense of Distraction. Anderon states, “Distraction, it turns out, is a critical component of creativity and insight. I would have to agree with this sentiment, this quote is meaningful because it challenges the common perception that distraction is purely negative. Instead, it suggests that distraction can actually aid in the development of creativity and insight. By allowing our minds to shift focus, we might stumble upon new ideas and solutions that we wouldn’t have discovered if we were always strictly focused. This perspective encourages us to see the value in moments of distraction and how they can contribute to our overall growth. As a critical component of creativity and insight, distractions and letting the mind wander has led to a wide array of new concepts that have driven the human race to new levels of intelligence. In tension with this perspective Carr believes that technology will eventually stretch our minds thin, by constantly embedding these new tech technologies into our lives we are harming our ability to think on a deeper level. It is all too easy to look up the answers to any question or problem that arises in our day-to-day lives. In his article, Carr argues “ …we are drained of our “inner repertory of dense cultural inheritance “; this quote refers to the deep and complex traditions, knowledge, and values passed down through generations. When we are “drained” of this inheritance, it suggests a loss of connection to the experiences that inform our understanding of the world and ourselves. I find there to be credibility in both of these perspectives. I think that the human mind is so adaptable and fluid that we will be able to make peace with these introductions of newer, newer technology, and be able to evolve with it as we have time and time again.
As a society, we often forget to look back into our past. We are so focused on the future that the past becomes just a whisper in our memories. Technology is at fault for this. It not only weakens our connection to the past, but our connection with others and our ability to think. This idea is elaborated upon in Sherry Turkle’s “The Empathy Diaries: A Memoir” and Nicholas Carr’s “Is Google Making us Stupid?” Turkle believes that technology negatively impacts our relationships with others since better communicative technology results in less empathy. Likewise, Carr believes technology affects society, but in a different way. He thinks that the convenient information provided by the internet is making us dumber. The web gives us our answers in a very convenient, shallow way. It lacks reasoning, and doesn’t give us a chance to think deeply about information or a topic. Overall, both authors believe technology is a negative form of communication and thinking.
Technology hinders our ability to think and communicate, weakening our connection with others. Sherry Turkle, author of “The Empathy Diaries: A Memoir,” explains throughout her work that technology is ruining empathy in both older and newer generations. She begins the passage with the sentence, “…we turn to our phones instead of each other” (Turkle 343). This means that instead of having social interactions with others, we tend to prefer the safety behind a screen. It is easier to communicate over the phone, but it is often shallow and lacks meaning. Face-to-face interaction is necessary, because “It’s where we develop the capacity for empathy” (Turkle 344). Likewise, Nicholas Carr’s essay displays the idea that having convenient access to online information is negatively affecting our ability to think deeply and it is a distraction in our lives. He explains that “Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski” (Carr 2). Carr believes that the internet has affected his own mind, making him less capable of analyzing large pieces of literature and resorting to the Net for quick, correct answers. Although he is finding the answers he is looking for, he isn’t improving his ability to think and comprehend large pieces of information. Both passages referenced above help prove that technology does not teach deep thinking or communication skills, but is a convenient distraction from real-life interactions.
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What has the internet done to people? This is a question that many people wonder about because of the effects the internet or technology as a whole has had on us in recent times. Technology has continued to grow everyday and everyday we adapt to that and it is taking over and becoming a part of our lives. The way it is affecting how we behave and act brings up some major concerns and it is something many people talk about. I believe that technology has had some impacts on us in our lives both negatively and positively. Sherry Turkle, a professor at MIT, wrote her “Empathy Diaries” and in that writing she discusses the effects she believes technology has had on us. She mainly focuses on how technology has had a negative impact on conversation and empathy in humans. Similarly to what Turkle discusses, Nicholas Carr in, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”, talks about what google has done to us. He states how he believes the internet and google more specifically is taking away from us doing any thinking on our own. Technology as a whole is changing us and causing us to behave, think and even have conversation all differently both positively and negatively.
Modern technology is causing us humans to not only not be able to think for ourselves but also is causing us to lack skills like having and holding a conversation. Technology has changed the way we can talk to people, “But these days we find ways around conversation. We hide from each other even as we’re constantly connected to each other. For on our screens, we are tempted to present ourselves as we would like to be” (Turkle 344). Turkle is explaining how our conversations are changing because of how technology has affected us. It is causing us to think differently and affects our ability to have conversation. Similar to her thoughts, Nicholas Carr, states “I can feel it too. Over the past few years I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone or something has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory. My mind isn’t going–so far as I can tell–but it’s changing.” (Carr 1). The way they state that we hide from conversation and that our minds are being messed around with is the cause of what technology has on us and not in a good way. We should be able to do these simple life skills like have a conversation and not feel like our mind is changing. Technology is increasing in power and is changing us.
Are we doomed? For years, society has disagreed upon digital technology and its impacts on humanity. Some believe that it will cause the downfall of life and society as we know it, whereas others believe it is one of the finest modern day tools. Obviously, everything has pros and cons, but when you really get into it, digital technology is not as bad as some make it out to be. The “crisis” the doomsayers speak of is really just our failure to adapt to technology and the internet, not necessarily a problem with the technology itself. Sam Anderson, New York Times Magazine book critic and author of In Defense of Distraction, dives into the real problem with technology and how it is not actually the technology but how we use it. He says that the question is “how successfully we can adapt” (Anderson 2), not how to reverse some terminal distraction or cognitive plague brought on by technology. Nicolas Carr, a Dartmouth and Harvard graduate and author of Is Google Making Us Stupid, discusses some of the same ideas, however, he also dives into the negative effects technology has been shown to have on the brain and behavior. Carr does say that technology is the root cause of many issues, but that simple moderation and learning how to effectively use digital devices and the virtual world could be the answer. I agree with both Anderson and Carr. There is not an actual crisis so to speak, more of just a temporary lack of adaptation and the answer to how we can adapt to the everchanging of the digital world lies in moderation and self-discipline.
The brain’s plasticity and ability to constantly adapt allows us the capacity to learn to adapt to digital technology. The brain is what allows us to think and feel and process information, and the way the neurons fire can be altered by experiences in our lives. This is why a traumatic experience will alter the way our brains function, however, in that case, it is usually not a positive impact. In this case, the case of digital technology, we currently do not understand the full impact of it on our brains, but we do know there is some kind of impact. Carr addresses this in his work, stating that because the brain is so malleable “even the adult mind ‘is very plastic.’ Nerve cells routinely break old connections and form new ones. ‘The brain…has the ability to reprogram itself on the fly, altering the way it functions’”(Carr 4). Given this information, and the fact that we are still awaiting information on the long-term neurological and psychological effects on cognition, Carr is worried for humanity. He says, “what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles” (Carr 2).
11 thoughts on “JOURNAL # 16”
Humans have so much potential but sometimes it gets ruined with the little devices in our pocket. Nickolas Carr is a great writer and he wrote this paper called “ is google making us stupid”. In this paper it really brought my attention to how much technology is changing us for mostly the bad and how we aren’t seeing it fast enough or if we are seeing it we are putting a blind eye towards it. Also sherry turkle who is a phenomenally writer wrote another paper about how our phones and technology are shaping us to need things fast and how we don’t have much patience anymore. Technology is making us weaker and not as creative.
In Nicholas Carr’s paper he talked alot about how as a society we have lost patience because of google and how fast technology is. He explained “Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages”. (pg1 paragraph 2). I agree with this so much because google is making us so stupid and less patient. Because when we type in something to google it just takes seconds to come up with an answer so when we go and read and try and find answers that way our brains hate how long it takes so we just stop reading. Reading is hard as it is so when we find an easier way to find answers and then we go back to reading and finding answers that way it’s very difficult for our brain. I really liked our Nicholas Carr talked about how hard reading is. “ We have to teach our minds how to translate the symbolic characters we see into the language we understand”.( pg3 Paragraph 4). I have never thought about it this way but it’s so true. Letters are just symbols and that’s why it’s so hard for us to read and how it’s so much easier for us to have google do it for us. As Nickolas Stated in his paper “Google is making us stupid” I very much agree with this because not only are we losing patience but we are losing our writing skills due to always typing on our phones or our computers. When we write on paper no one is offering different words to choose from and if you don’t choose it your words will stay underlined in red so it just makes you switch the word.
Distraction, like many other things, has evolved over the years. It is only natural that while humans evolve, modes of distraction and our responses to them evolve simultaneously. Today, the main mode of distraction is technology, and most people are just starting to form their own opinions about it. Since it is a highly debatable topic, it is only natural that people can have perspectives from the opposite ends of the spectrum. Nicholas Carr, a journalist who mostly writes about the effects of technology, laments that it is stealing his ability to think deeply in his article, Is Google Making Us Stupid? On the opposite end of the spectrum, Sam Anderson, a writer for the New York Times Magazine, talks about how he has noticed technology affecting people, and then “defends” it in his article, In Defense of Distraction. While Carr feels that technology is reducing our human complexity, Anderson argues that it actually increases it, because it forces our brains to change. While I understand where Carr is coming from, I believe that Anderson’s view is more compelling. Since evolution is a natural part of life, I don’t believe that technology will always have the effects that Carr describes, though I do realize that it is an issue now.
The brain is the most complex part of the human body, and consequently isn’t 100% understood now. What we do know is that it is very elastic and therefore has the ability to adapt to many situations. I believe technology is therefore adaptable, even within one’s lifetime. Anderson shares the same view. While he discusses the fact that there is currently an attention crisis, he doesn’t necessarily see this as a bad thing in the long run, arguing that, “More than any other organ, the brain is designed to change based on experience, a feature called neuroplasticity. London taxi drivers, for instance, have enlarged hippocampi…a neural reward for paying attention to the city’s streets. As we become more skilled in the 21st century task Mayer calls “flitting,” the wiring of the brain will inevitably change to deal more efficiently with more information.” Here, Anderson describes neuroplasticity, which is the brain’s ability to learn and adapt during one’s lifetime. He believes this ability can also be applied to the use of technology, and therefore, the attention crisis will not always be such a crisis. Carr thinks the opposite will happen. He believes that technology will eventually stretch our minds way too thin, sacrificing the complexity of human minds. Specifically, he argues “As we are drained of our “inner repertory of dense cultural inheritance,” Foreman concluded, we risk turning into “pancake people”-spread wide and thin as we connect with that vast network of information accessed by the mere touch of a button.” Carr believes the evolution of technology will only serve to hinder the human race. I believe both opinions, in their opposing views, have their merits. I agree with Carr in that right now it may seem like technology is just making people more flat, but I believe this will change with time. As we learn to coevolve with technology the longer it is around, I believe we will become used to it, and once again be able to function as we did before. The human mind is so amazing in its ability to adapt to new situations. How could technology, which is just a new thing to evolve with, not apply in this case? And so, my opinions line up more closely to Anderson’s.
Is technology really affecting us all that deeply? Do we have a problem that we can’t see? While I believe something should change, writers Nicholas Carr and Sherry Turkle both wrote about their thoughts on technology. Turkle, an author of 10 books and a professor at MIT, believes that technology is destroying our abilities to make connections. While Carr begs the question “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”, believing that our brains are changing and being remapped. These two believe that technology is a distraction, which I agree with. Turkle says it best that technology isn’t allowing “Students… to be making friendships as before. They make acquaintances, but their connections seem superficial.” (Sherry Turkle 345) We are all so caught up in our phones we aren’t able to connect to each other or have the ability to stay focused on the conversation in real life without needing to look at our phones. Carr says that his “concentration often starts to drift” he gets fidgety and begins “looking for something else to do.” (Nicholas Carr 1) I find myself often peeking at my phone in the middle of conversations, making sure I don’t miss a text message. I get fidgety and bored quickly, looking around for something else that seems more interesting, which leads me to my phone; scrolling endlessly, playing a game or just texting a friend. Even while writing only 500 words, I’ve checked my phone multiple times. Is giving in to boredom and looking at my phone every few sentences healthy? While Carr talks to his friends they believe “The more they use the Web, the more they have to fight to stay focused on long pieces of writing.” (2), so am I making myself worse off by giving into boredom? In Turkle’s piece she explains an experiment that was done where people were asked to sit quietly without a phone or book for fifteen minutes. The ones conducting the experiment asked if they would shock themselves if they became bored. Although at the beginning they said they wouldn’t, they couldn’t stand the boredom, so they decided to shock themselves within only six minutes of being alone. Turkle says we are “Afraid of being alone” (348) but has technology actually just ruined our abilities to keep ourselves busy alone? I think they we are so used to the constant stimulation of our phones; we have unlearned patience. If you are bored, you whip out your phone and find something to do that interests you until it’s time to do something else.
Thoughtful Words
Maybe not all but most of us start our days off by checking our phones: what time is it? Who texted? What’s happening on social media? Etc.… then throughout the day we have our phones on us and check/use them frequently. Along with having our phones most of us probably have some other sort of device around us whether it be a computer, tv, etc. It’s around us all the time now. Technology is changing everything for us, the way we think, write, conversate, connect, and act. Sherry Turkle, with a doctorate in sociology and personality psychology, wrote the book “In Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age”. The intro to her book is called “The Empathy Diaries” where she writes about why she believes technology is an oncoming issue to how we empathize and connect, along with the effects on our reading, writing and thinking. Turkle focuses more on the impacts of our connections and ability to empathize. In Nicholas Carr’s article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” He focuses on the loss of our attention span and human potential.
The way we conversate and connect with people is different now that we have technology. Every day I use my phone, whether it’s to text my friends, family, watch social media or movies. I never really saw or even thought about the effects it could have on my ability to connect/ converse with people, until I read “The empathy diaries” and have come to be more aware. “We have embarked upon a voyage of forgetting. It has several. At a first, we speak through machines and forget how essential face-to-face conversation is to our relationships, our creativity and our capacity for empathy” (Turkle 352 para 2). Face-to-face conversations are what make our connections stronger. Being face-to-face allows you to see/learn body language, social cues and how to empathize with someone. It teaches lots of personal development skills and I have begun to realize that conversations are usually superficial unless effort is put into them. No one puts effort anymore and would rather the comfort of being in a virtual world. But this is a problem, without conversations or connections an important characteristic would be missing from us, which is empathy.
The media is designed in a way that shortens our attention span and changes the way we read and think. It supplies all different kinds of information at once, usually in short spurts. This is making it so that when it comes to reading a book or “long” essay we find it hard to concentrate the whole time, as our attention span is being altered by this new type of reading. I myself am in this position and have noticed my attention span is shorter than it should be. The internet knows what it’s doing “as people’s minds become attuned to the crazy quilt of Internet media, traditional media has adapted to the audience’s new expectations” (Carr 5.2). We seek quick and easy access to information, where we don’t really have to think. The internet has learned what we expect and gives it to us with an overload of info. When I go on Instagram reels or Tik Tok the videos are usually short and if they are long or I’m not interested I can just swipe easily and from it I get all different sorts of information thrown at me in such a short time span. I sometimes fall in the trap of doom scrolling but I know this is a problem, and I see the effects myself. It’s all about balance and self-control and that’s something we probably all need to work on
Technology has become a part of our everyday lives. Many believe it’s impacting our human behavior. Nicholas Carr touches on this topic in his essay, “Is Google Making Us Stupid.” He mentions how technology is taking away our ability to think. Similarly, Sherry Turkle, a doctorate holder in sociology and psychology from Harvard, also writes an essay about technology called, “The Empathy Diaries.” She explains how technology affects conversation and our capacity for empathy. Both authors agree that technology is affecting us negatively, but Carr focuses more on how it affects our intelligence and concentration, while Turkle focuses more on how it affects our conversation.
Turkle and Carr both agree that we use technology to avoid something. Carr believes the internet has chipped away at his capacity for concentration and as a result, he can no longer focus on long pieces of writing. To improve this argument, he refers to a study of online research habits, organized by scholars at the University College London. The scholars reported that, “It is clear that users are not reading online in the traditional sense; indeed there are signs that new forms of “reading” are emerging as users “power browse” horizontally through titles, content pages and abstracts going for quick wins. It almost seems that they go online to avoid reading in the traditional sense”(Carr 3). Instead of thoughtfully reading through articles, people are just skimming through and browsing to avoid reading the whole thing. Similarly, Turkle thinks we use technology to avoid having face-to-face conversation. She explains that conversation is important for our early development, “But these days we find ways around conversation. We hide from each other even as were constantly connected to each other”(Turkle 344). Technology makes it easy to avoid conversation. There’s so many other ways to communicate now so we don’t have to speak face-to-face. Carr also believes technology helps to avoid, but he believes it helps to avoid reading a text, rather than to avoid conversation. I think they both make very good points and I agree that we use technology to avoid certain things. I can relate to Turkle’s point because sometimes I will text a friend who lives two doors down when I could’ve just knocked on their door. But texting is right at my fingertips and it’s much more convenient. It’s less stressful than having to go ask something in person. I also relate to Carr’s point because I rarely read full articles anymore. I skim over the headings and read some of it, but sometimes I skip over whole paragraphs. I avoid conversing and reading full articles because technology allows me to avoid it.
In an increasingly interconnected world, technology has become the backbone of human society, it’s been used to better lives, build communication, promote learning, and enhance access to information. Sherry Turkle, a renowned sociologist and psychologist, has dedicated her career to exploring the intricate relationship between technology and human connection. In her anthology, “The Empathy Diaries,” Turkle dives into the paradox that in our digital age while technology offers unprecedented avenues for connection, it can also lead to isolation and superficiality. By examining the impact of digital communication on our emotional lives, Turkle argues that fostering genuine empathy requires a conscious balance between online interactions and face-to-face interaction. Through her analysis, she challenges us to reflect on how we engage with technology and why the importance of nurturing our ability for empathy is an incredible necessity in an increasingly mediated world. Nicholas Carr, a prominent writer and thinker on technology and culture, poses a critical question in his thought-provoking essay, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” He examines the cognitive effects of our reliance on the internet and digital devices, arguing that the ease of accessing information may reshape our brains in ways that tend to breed chaos. Carr suggests that while technology provides us with an excessively keen amount of knowledge, however, it can also strongly diminish our ability to concentrate, think critically, and engage deeply with complex conversions by scrutinizing our relationship with technology. Carr invites readers to consider the habits of our digital ways and the potential consequences for our cognitive abilities and intellectual growth in the modern age; however, this essay argues that technology is far from making us “stupid,” as Carr may suggest, in fact, it teaches us to adapt to the challenges that our generation may have. Which will speed up intellectual growth and social connection, enabling us to access vast information, engage with diverse perspectives, and cultivate meaningful relationships in previously unimaginable ways.
To fully appreciate the benefits of technology, it is essential to recognize how it has transformed the way we access information and learn, making knowledge more accessible than ever before. Turkle brings up the point that “technology can foster connections, providing a platform for voices that might otherwise go unheard” (Turkle ). Saying this I can conclude that I agree there have been so many times in my life where technology has been the only outlet not just to unheard voices but unwanted voices, growing up in a toxic environment my words never hit the ears of adults until after the age of “maturity” which was sixteen, and even still it was shallow, and hollow in their ability to listen.
Sherry Turkle, a sociologist and author of “The Empathy Diaries,” along with Nicholas Carr, who wrote the essay “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” both voice concerns regarding the impact of technology on communication and learning. They discuss their views in two primary ways: they argue that todays technological media hurts essential human capabilities. Carr believes that the constant rush of the internet prevents us from taking the time to reflect or fully understand anything, even posing the provocative question, “Maybe all this is making us less intelligent?” On the other hand, Turkle says that “Technology challenges us to assert our human values. In a world where our devices encourage distant connections, we must exert greater effort to cultivate empathy and maintain emotional ties.” (Turkle) This leads to shallower relationships, making it increasingly difficult to empathize with and comprehend others’ emotions.
Clearly, the internet has profoundly influenced our cognitive processes and how we think. This influence is particularly evident in our ability to concentrate and engage in “deep” thinking, which for many has shifted towards a more superficial and distracted approach, such as navigating a website. The views offered by Carr and Turkle are not new; numerous individuals have raised similar concerns regarding these shifts. It is important to recognize that advances in technology are gradually changing essential elements necessary to uphold core values.
Both Carr and Turkle acknowledge a common observation about technology’s tendency to promote superficial interactions, especially amongst the internet and digital communication. Carr discusses how technology, particularly the internet, influences cognitive functioning, making sustained attention and critical thinking more challenging. He notes, “My mind isn’t going—so far as I can tell—but it’s changing. I’m not thinking the way I used to think. I can feel it most strongly when I’m reading.”(Carr) Meanwhile, Turkle highlights, “We have sacrificed conversation for mere connection. We have traded real-time interaction for the illusion of companionship, which, in turn, weakens our capacity for empathy,” (Turkle) emphasizing that technological connections lack the depth of face-to-face interactions, which are vital for fostering genuine empathy and understanding among individuals.
As humans have evolved and developed more technologies and advancements in many stages of life, along with it distractions have evolved simultaneously. There have always been distractions, it is only natural that as times have changed. Humans have adapted to these new distractions in many aspects. Our lives are heavily dominated by the use of technology and consequently these new technologies provide a constant distraction from both reality and from the task we’re trying to focus on. Nicholas Carr, a journalist who mostly writes about the effects of technology, outlines how these distractions are stealing his ability to think deeply in his article, Is Google Making Us Stupid? On the opposite end of the spectrum, Sam Anderson, a writer for the New York Times Magazine, talks about how he has noticed technology affecting people, and then “defends” it in his article, In Defense of Distraction. Anderon states, “Distraction, it turns out, is a critical component of creativity and insight. I would have to agree with this sentiment, this quote is meaningful because it challenges the common perception that distraction is purely negative. Instead, it suggests that distraction can actually aid in the development of creativity and insight. By allowing our minds to shift focus, we might stumble upon new ideas and solutions that we wouldn’t have discovered if we were always strictly focused. This perspective encourages us to see the value in moments of distraction and how they can contribute to our overall growth. As a critical component of creativity and insight, distractions and letting the mind wander has led to a wide array of new concepts that have driven the human race to new levels of intelligence. In tension with this perspective Carr believes that technology will eventually stretch our minds thin, by constantly embedding these new tech technologies into our lives we are harming our ability to think on a deeper level. It is all too easy to look up the answers to any question or problem that arises in our day-to-day lives. In his article, Carr argues “ …we are drained of our “inner repertory of dense cultural inheritance “; this quote refers to the deep and complex traditions, knowledge, and values passed down through generations. When we are “drained” of this inheritance, it suggests a loss of connection to the experiences that inform our understanding of the world and ourselves. I find there to be credibility in both of these perspectives. I think that the human mind is so adaptable and fluid that we will be able to make peace with these introductions of newer, newer technology, and be able to evolve with it as we have time and time again.
As a society, we often forget to look back into our past. We are so focused on the future that the past becomes just a whisper in our memories. Technology is at fault for this. It not only weakens our connection to the past, but our connection with others and our ability to think. This idea is elaborated upon in Sherry Turkle’s “The Empathy Diaries: A Memoir” and Nicholas Carr’s “Is Google Making us Stupid?” Turkle believes that technology negatively impacts our relationships with others since better communicative technology results in less empathy. Likewise, Carr believes technology affects society, but in a different way. He thinks that the convenient information provided by the internet is making us dumber. The web gives us our answers in a very convenient, shallow way. It lacks reasoning, and doesn’t give us a chance to think deeply about information or a topic. Overall, both authors believe technology is a negative form of communication and thinking.
Technology hinders our ability to think and communicate, weakening our connection with others. Sherry Turkle, author of “The Empathy Diaries: A Memoir,” explains throughout her work that technology is ruining empathy in both older and newer generations. She begins the passage with the sentence, “…we turn to our phones instead of each other” (Turkle 343). This means that instead of having social interactions with others, we tend to prefer the safety behind a screen. It is easier to communicate over the phone, but it is often shallow and lacks meaning. Face-to-face interaction is necessary, because “It’s where we develop the capacity for empathy” (Turkle 344). Likewise, Nicholas Carr’s essay displays the idea that having convenient access to online information is negatively affecting our ability to think deeply and it is a distraction in our lives. He explains that “Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski” (Carr 2). Carr believes that the internet has affected his own mind, making him less capable of analyzing large pieces of literature and resorting to the Net for quick, correct answers. Although he is finding the answers he is looking for, he isn’t improving his ability to think and comprehend large pieces of information. Both passages referenced above help prove that technology does not teach deep thinking or communication skills, but is a convenient distraction from real-life interactions.
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What has the internet done to people? This is a question that many people wonder about because of the effects the internet or technology as a whole has had on us in recent times. Technology has continued to grow everyday and everyday we adapt to that and it is taking over and becoming a part of our lives. The way it is affecting how we behave and act brings up some major concerns and it is something many people talk about. I believe that technology has had some impacts on us in our lives both negatively and positively. Sherry Turkle, a professor at MIT, wrote her “Empathy Diaries” and in that writing she discusses the effects she believes technology has had on us. She mainly focuses on how technology has had a negative impact on conversation and empathy in humans. Similarly to what Turkle discusses, Nicholas Carr in, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”, talks about what google has done to us. He states how he believes the internet and google more specifically is taking away from us doing any thinking on our own. Technology as a whole is changing us and causing us to behave, think and even have conversation all differently both positively and negatively.
Modern technology is causing us humans to not only not be able to think for ourselves but also is causing us to lack skills like having and holding a conversation. Technology has changed the way we can talk to people, “But these days we find ways around conversation. We hide from each other even as we’re constantly connected to each other. For on our screens, we are tempted to present ourselves as we would like to be” (Turkle 344). Turkle is explaining how our conversations are changing because of how technology has affected us. It is causing us to think differently and affects our ability to have conversation. Similar to her thoughts, Nicholas Carr, states “I can feel it too. Over the past few years I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone or something has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory. My mind isn’t going–so far as I can tell–but it’s changing.” (Carr 1). The way they state that we hide from conversation and that our minds are being messed around with is the cause of what technology has on us and not in a good way. We should be able to do these simple life skills like have a conversation and not feel like our mind is changing. Technology is increasing in power and is changing us.
Are we doomed? For years, society has disagreed upon digital technology and its impacts on humanity. Some believe that it will cause the downfall of life and society as we know it, whereas others believe it is one of the finest modern day tools. Obviously, everything has pros and cons, but when you really get into it, digital technology is not as bad as some make it out to be. The “crisis” the doomsayers speak of is really just our failure to adapt to technology and the internet, not necessarily a problem with the technology itself. Sam Anderson, New York Times Magazine book critic and author of In Defense of Distraction, dives into the real problem with technology and how it is not actually the technology but how we use it. He says that the question is “how successfully we can adapt” (Anderson 2), not how to reverse some terminal distraction or cognitive plague brought on by technology. Nicolas Carr, a Dartmouth and Harvard graduate and author of Is Google Making Us Stupid, discusses some of the same ideas, however, he also dives into the negative effects technology has been shown to have on the brain and behavior. Carr does say that technology is the root cause of many issues, but that simple moderation and learning how to effectively use digital devices and the virtual world could be the answer. I agree with both Anderson and Carr. There is not an actual crisis so to speak, more of just a temporary lack of adaptation and the answer to how we can adapt to the everchanging of the digital world lies in moderation and self-discipline.
The brain’s plasticity and ability to constantly adapt allows us the capacity to learn to adapt to digital technology. The brain is what allows us to think and feel and process information, and the way the neurons fire can be altered by experiences in our lives. This is why a traumatic experience will alter the way our brains function, however, in that case, it is usually not a positive impact. In this case, the case of digital technology, we currently do not understand the full impact of it on our brains, but we do know there is some kind of impact. Carr addresses this in his work, stating that because the brain is so malleable “even the adult mind ‘is very plastic.’ Nerve cells routinely break old connections and form new ones. ‘The brain…has the ability to reprogram itself on the fly, altering the way it functions’”(Carr 4). Given this information, and the fact that we are still awaiting information on the long-term neurological and psychological effects on cognition, Carr is worried for humanity. He says, “what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles” (Carr 2).